Professional and amateur photographers often capture images of groups of people such as images of families and athletic teams. Such group images are typically used for commemorative purposes. A common problem with such group images is that often one or more members of the group will have an appearance at the time that the group image is captured that the member does not prefer. For example, group members can blink, look away, make a comment or otherwise compose their facial attributes in a non-preferable way. Similar problems can occur whenever images are captured that include more than one element. Examples of such elements include people, as described above, animals, objects, areas such as a background of a scene, and/or any other photographic subject that can change over time. Typically, photographers address this problem by capturing multiple images of the group of elements and selecting from the multiple images a group image that shows all of the elements in the group image having a generally acceptable appearance. Even where this is done, it is often the case that one or more elements has a less than optimal appearance.
Various forms of image editing software can be used to attempt to improve the appearance of elements in a group image. Such editing software typically includes automatic image correction algorithms that can resolve common image problems such as the so-called red-eye problem that can occur in images of people. See, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0053663 entitled “Method and Computer Program Products for Locating Facial Features” filed by Chen et al. on Nov. 26, 2001. Further, advanced users of such image editing software can use manual image editing tools such as Adobe PhotoShop™ software sold by Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., USA, to manually alter images. It will be appreciated however, that the use of such image editing tools to correct a group image is time consuming and can yield results that have a less than authentic appearance. What is needed therefore is an imaging system and method that can effectively form optimal group images with an authentic appearance in a less time consuming manner.